


A Thousand Rose Petals Red and White

by Becky_Blue_Eyes



Series: A May Queen of House Tudor [2]
Category: 16th Century CE RPF, The Tudors (TV)
Genre: Alternate History, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Smut, I wrote this because I want a Happy Mary dammit, Mildly femdom but make it chivalric, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:27:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23644606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Becky_Blue_Eyes/pseuds/Becky_Blue_Eyes
Summary: The first time Harry Grey meets Queen Mary Tudor, it is at their wedding. He waits for her at the altar, surrounded by roses red and white. A beautiful wedding, with a beautiful bride in cloth-of-silver and an emperor’s ransom of pearls. But he doesn’t see the flowers, nor the dress and its silver and pearls. No, he sees the quiet fear in her wide eyes—eyes just like his own.Or, how Harry Grey and Mary Tudor fall in love.Companion piece to On A Matter of Mercy. Unabashed romantic fluff, with a couple explicit sex scenes and only a touch of angst. Because Mary deserves all of that and more.
Relationships: Mary I of England/Henry Grey, minor Elizabeth I of England/Robert Dudley
Series: A May Queen of House Tudor [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1702213
Comments: 18
Kudos: 55





	A Thousand Rose Petals Red and White

King Henry VIII has been dead for all of two days when Harry’s mother comes to him and tells him, “You will marry Her Grace and become her king consort Henry Tudor.”

He doesn’t say anything at first. He has just gotten over the scandal and shame of his failed engagement with Frances Brandon when she ran off with Henry Howard, and now he is to be a king? To lose his name and take up the name of the king past and the king before him? Harry opens his mouth then closes it. Then he finds the grace to ask, “And Thomas is to be the next Marquess of Dorset then?”

Thomas always hated being in Harry’s shadow. Now he will finally become Lord Grey, Marquess of Dorset, while Harry…Harry refuses to swoon like a maiden at her first joust. His mother nods and Harry asks, “When shall we be married?”

“By the end of this week.” Oh, Harry wants to faint. How embarrassing.

His mother explains it along with the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, the rest in the new Queen’s Council. Better to marry as quick as they can the Queen of England to a well-educated and obscenely rich man of proper English stock before foreign nobles see war as a wooing. Harry will not hold the crown matrimonial as he is still but a marquess and it sets a precedent for all future queens regnant: England shall always have a queen, but not necessarily a king.

Harry doesn’t mind. His passions have been for religious reform and the well-being of his tenants, not for ruling all of England. And he’s not surprised that his shrewd mother offered his hand to the new Queen Mary than Thomas’s or John’s. Harry is no shrinking violet nor unmanly, but he is…mild. Moderate. Mediating. Mutable. The perfect queen for a king, had their sexes been switched.

Harry wonders if the queen knew of this. Not two days past she was locked up at Hatfield as the supposed bastard servant to the former Princess Elizabeth. But yesterday someone managed to twist the Archbishop’s arm until he declared that Henry VIII’s annulment to Catherine of Aragon was under “false pretenses” and reverted. Now the new Lady Elizabeth is the one locked up in Hatfield, but this time for her own protection, or so Harry’s heard. The queen is said to love her sister despite their parents; if Harry were the one having his own bastard half-siblings under his care, he would not like to see them done away with by ambitious courtiers seeking ill-begotten favor.

So he shall be married on Monday despite the whole realm mourning their king. Very efficient, judging from the army reshaping London into a fairytale of gossamer and gold, and the seamstresses and tailors fashioning him a wedding suit all hours of the day. He writes to the queen, apologizing for never have properly met her before—when he was courting Frances the queen was at Ludlow and then at Hatfield—and for not courting her as any man ought to court his future wife. He writes of his brothers and sisters, of his parents, of his dog Foxtail, of the Grey estates where he grew up…he is too hesitant to write of himself as a breeder writes of his prize stallion put to stud. The queen must think him a fool already.

Monday comes too quickly for his nerves. He is a man of twenty-one, so it’s past time for him to marry, but—but he is to marry the queen! Queen Mary I, by her God-given grace! Harry goes to his friend Hal Courtenay and asks of the queen, as Hal has far more London-area servants whispering to him than Harry in Dorset and Leicestershire. Hal’s lips thin into a line, and he admits, “Her Majesty has been ill-treated by her father and stepmother. I heard that when she was told of your upcoming marriage, she locked herself in a chapel and entreated God and the Virgin Mary for hours, beseeching them to send her a kind lord who will…well, who will not be of the same vein as the departed king, God rest his soul.”

He’s never met Queen Mary, but already his foolish knight’s heart pulses in protective fervor. He cannot imagine what she’s been through; when he imagines his sisters Kathy and Beth in the queen’s place, he’s furious enough at the departed king to want to spit as his grave. Henry’s father, for all of the faults a mortal man had, loved his children. Why didn’t King Henry?

Harry swears to himself then, on the eve of his wedding, that he will never treat whatever children God may give him as King Henry did his own daughter.

* * *

The first time Henry meets Queen Mary Tudor in the flesh, it is at their wedding. He waits for her at the altar, surrounded by roses red and white. All of London is swathed in a thousand rose petals it seems to him, every which way is red and white and gold. The sun burns in a cloudless blue sky and the winds are gentle and only somewhat freezing despite the early February day. A good omen and a beautiful wedding, with a beautiful bride in cloth-of-silver and an emperor’s ransom of pearls. But he doesn’t see the flowers, nor the dress and its silver and pearls. No, he sees the quiet fear in her wide eyes—eyes just like his own.

His heart bleeds just a touch. She must be terrified of him, another King Henry. They say their vows in the roman rite, and her lily-white hands tremble slightly in his hold, and he kisses her as all of England cheers for their young new Queen and King. Her lips are warm and soft, for the second he presses against them. Then he murmurs, “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, my queen.”

The hint of a smile graces those lips. “And I am pleased as well, my king.”

Their—hers in truth—coronation won’t be until the mourning period for the old Henry is finished. But there are two crowns of gold upon their heads, and the diamonds glint red in the sunlight. Yes, she has red hair too, a far richer red than his auburn but red all the same. They have the same blue-green eyes too from their Woodville blood, and the same pointed chin, and the same slender figure. However, she is more than just slender. Harry narrows his eyes at how bony her wrists are, at how a stiff breeze might sweep their bonny new queen away before she can be a queen anointed. Did they not feed her properly at Hatfield? Are the rumors of her scrubbing the floors while painfully sick more than just the Imperial ambassador’s propaganda?

Whatever the truth, Harry is her—her husband now. She is his wife for now and always. And as his wife, he will not see her waste away. He watches what Queen Mary likes and dislikes at their wedding banquet and calls for more of what she takes to. More braised pork, more fowl roasted with rosemary potatoes and almonds, more salads of fresh greens and dandelions, more berry tarts. Queen Mary gives him a small smile. “You are most conscientious of my needs, my lord.”

“Just Harry if it pleases you, my queen.” Harry’s mother imparted upon him his unique role of acting as the queen to her king. He must suit her needs, not the other way around. And truth be told, to play the indulgent knight to as fair as maiden as Queen Mary…it is no hardship. “And I wish to see you hale and happy always.”

She is quiet for a moment. Then she murmurs, “And just Mary if it pleases you…Harry.” Harry shivers ever so slightly to hear his name on her lips. Such a pleasant voice she has, she must have been trained by talented musicians. She reaches out and lays her hand on his. “I thank you for your letter, it soothed my worries to hear from you before our wedding. You mentioned that you’ve read _Amadís de Gaula_ before?”

“Yes, it is one of my favorite books.”

She smiles in truth. “As it is mine. Tell me, what did you think of Amadís’s romance to the princess Oriana? I personally thought it was the height of scandal for them to consummate their love outside of marriage, but they’d loved each other for so long…”

They speak of the book for much of the wedding, even during one of their dances. And it does not escape Harry of the parallels between Amadís and Oriana, and himself and…and Mary. A knight earning the love and regard to the heiress of all England—save for the scandal of their illegitimate son before they married, Harry would do well to emulate the hero of that story. Then they speak of the poems they’ve read, and the music Mary loves to play upon the virginals, and Harry’s favorite painters from the continent. It’s like courting Frances again, except this time there shall be no Henry Howard!

Indeed, Frances is present at the wedding as one of Mary’s dearest friends. Harry doesn’t flinch when he bows over her hand and leads her to a courtly dance. “You’ve done well for yourself,” she teases and the faint stirrings of a love long lost rustles in Harry’s heart. He stomps on it. “And another King Henry. Do well to not emulate the last.”

“My lady, I would never dare to betray Her Majesty in such a way. My fidelity is enduring, as is my love.” This time Frances is the one who must look away. Harry sighs. “My lady wife the queen will need loyal friends during her rule. Can I rely on you to be that friend?”

“Of course. I would never betray Mary.”

And that, Harry decides, is something they can both agree upon. He lets her go back to her great love, and he seeks out his sisters for their own turns along the dance floor. His sisters, then Mary, then Mary’s governess the Lady Salisbury, then Mary again. She is light enough that he can twirl her off her feet with his hands firm about her waist, and this is how he hears her laugh for the first time. He almost forgets what is to come, until the wedding winds down to the last and it is time for the consummation.

Harry freezes. He feels Mary stiffen, the flash of terror in her eyes. He sets her down, and Mary proclaims to the wedding guests, “Continue on without us, my lords and ladies and people of England. Celebrate in the bounty of our marriage!”

They cheer at the command of her voice, so steady, so powerful, so much a queen of legend. Harry takes her arm in his and she leads him to their wedding chambers. There is still mourning black along the walls, and all traces of the former Queen Anne’s presence has been scrubbed and hidden away. He wishes he was gifted with extraordinary vision so that he may see into his new wife’s thoughts. What does she fear? Does she fear the practicalities of the marriage bed, as most virgins do? Does she fear he will be unkind?

At Mary’s insistence, there are no witnesses to their consummation. Harry is glad for it, for he doubts he could have steeled the nerve to lay with Mary with a handful of dukes and countesses lingering around the room! There’s a decanter of spiced wine waiting for him, and the room is filled with a thousand roses red and white. For a while they part as their servants divest them of their wedding gowns. They even bathe them, and in retrospect that will make things more pleasant. He returns in his shift to find Mary much the same, brushing out her long fiery hair. Such beautiful hair she has, so red against the white of her skin. And in the firelight from the hearth, her eyes seem so green. Like the Lady of the Lake come to grant him a boon he hardly deserves.

He pours her a goblet of wine and she accepts it with quiet thanks. For a while they sit in the pensive silence until the wine is gone. Then he says, “If…if you are uncertain—”

“But we must. I cannot have anyone question this marriage. Not after what happened with my mother and—and the departed king.”

Do the ghosts of Catherine of Aragon and Arthur Tudor and Henry Tudor haunt their marriage chamber? Harry busies himself with collecting the goblets and setting them aside. Perhaps if he waves his arms sharply enough, the ghosts shall be banished. He bites his lip. Has Mary ever known of a happy marriage? They say even when the old king and queen were married, there was a constant tension between them, a constant suffering on Queen Catherine’s part. He turns back to Mary, who sits on that oversized bed with terrified eyes but a determined set to her jaw.

Harry has been with a few women, women who had already given their maidenheads to husbands or patrons before he alighted on their threshold. In a way, this will be a first for him as well, although he dare not compare his fears to Mary’s. He holds out a hand to her, and she takes it. “I will do my best to give you please,” he murmurs. “You are my queen. And a queen deserves naught but pleasure in her marriage bed.”

“Do not make promises you cannot keep,” she whispers.

He sinks to her knees before her. He kisses her little hand, and he swears in a voice that rings about the room, “I, Henry of Houses Grey and Tudor, do pledge to my lady wife Her Majesty Queen Mary Tudor before God and the Virgin Mary, to always be a conscientious and kind husband. To love you, to honor you, to be your comfort and your companion. Your shield and sword, your protector and your loyal servant. You and whatever children God sees fit to grant us shall always be loved and protected by me, and never abandoned nor treated with cruelty and dishonesty. This I so swear upon my immortal soul.”

Mary trembles. Her eyes fill with tears, and her voice breaks. “I accept your pledge, my lord husband.”

Harry kisses her hand. Then he leans up and she leans down and he kisses her properly. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and he carefully lays his hands upon her lower thighs. It is so easy to kiss her, to draw breath as she does, to inhale the scent of orange flowers in her hair and the taste of mint on her tongue. Mary whimpers when he slides his tongue in his mouth to seek out her warms and the sound ignites in his blood like kindling. He pulls back and she pants, licking her swollen lips and the sight of her tongue—he groans and Mary breathes, “I’ve never kissed anyone like that before.”

“There are many kisses I would like to share with you, if you are willing, Mary.”

“Yes.”

That simple yes nearly undoes him. He kisses her petal-soft cheek, Then the seam of her jaw, then down her neck. Mary moans ever so softly and her hands fist in the back of his shift. What he would give to mark this pale expanse of skin, to show the world that their queen has given herself to him as willingly as he’s given himself to her—but no. No, not her neck, it is unseemly. But her shoulder, perhaps? Harry grazes her teeth on her collarbone and she writhes against him. So sensitive she is. He groans when she writhes against a very sensitive need of his own and she blushes rose red. “I…” she swallows, then trails a hand down his front to his stomach. “May I see?”

Harry kneels before her and removes his shift. Mary’s eyes widen and he himself blushes. He would surely die if she found him unattractive. Mary stands up and walks around him, trailing her fingers across his shoulders and leaving burning paths in their gentle wake. “Stand,” she commands in her proud queenly voice and he cannot help it, he moans. He does as he’s told and a new sort of lust seems to blossom in her face. “Do you like being told what to do, my husband?”

“By your command, my wife.”

She looks down at his erection brushing against her shift. Mary smiles again and he shivers. Then she gently wraps her hand around him and his hips buck. “Then show me more of those kisses you promised.”

Harry picks her up by the waist and presses her against the bedpost. She undoes the lacing of her shift and it pools at their feet. Her skin seems to glow beneath his hands and he wonders if Mary Tudor is made of an Englishwoman’s flesh or that of Melusine’s. He kisses down her neck, down the valley of her breasts, and she clutches at his head and tells him yes. Yes. He sucks a nipple into his mouth and she keens, _yes._ How can he deny her whatever she desires? How can he when she says yes and his body screams for more of that _yes,_ that giving, that willingness?

He kisses lower until his forehead rests against her stomach and she gasps, “Harry—” He nuzzles against the thicket of hair between her legs. A woman’s body, a woman’s scent. He kisses her there, he shifts her so that her shapely thighs rest upon his shoulders and she’s gripping at his hair with one hand and the bedpost with the other and she’s commanding him as a queen to her knight. “Oh God, yes—more of that, higher—yes, right there! Don’t stop!’ He rubs his tongue in circles around the pearl of pleasure within her folds, he sucks and she cries out. “Yes!” _Yes!_ He doesn’t stop until she’s shuddering and sliding down the post and her thighs are twitching about his ears. He presses one last kiss against her for good measure and she sighs his name. Oh, to hear her say his name like that, he would die a happy man if it is the last sound for him to hear.

He sets her down on the bed and she spreads out on the bed over, stretching her arms above her head slow and sinuous. Harry stares and trembles. “Was that to your liking, my queen?”

“Yes, a thousand times so.” She stares back at him with her dark blue-green eyes, eyes that leave him weak. “Now let us conceive a son.”

She is wet, and hot, and it is so easy to slide in with her legs wrap around his hips and her head arched back to expose more of her neck for him to kiss. He is slow. Harry doesn’t feel the need to speed up, to draw this moment to a close. No, he just rocks against her, in and out and in again, and listens to the little sounds they make in tandem. This is what God intended, he realizes when she holds their hands together and tells him what she wants. This is the marriage bed, the completion of the sacred bond between man and wife. This is a far greater pleasure, a far greater joy than he’s ever known in any other bed. She leans up to kiss him and tears prickle at his eyes. This is his wedding night and this is his wife, what did he do to deserve such a blessing?

His movements lose their focus after a time, his hips jerks and every muscle strains and shakes. She tells him, she _commands_ him, “Keep your eyes on me,” and when he spills forward he keeps her gaze. He gasps for air; she pants beneath him. He wonders in a haze of pleasure if she would prefer being astride him next time, astride her new stallion—then he snorts, and she asks why. He tells her, and she laughs as well, and they collapse into a heap of giggles.

Oh, he’s being a fool, isn’t he? The servants come at some point to collect the sheets, embarrassingly stained but oddly enough with only a faint smear of blood. Then Mary bids him to come back to bed and he carefully lies his arm across her drowsy form. Yes, he’s being a fool. “I…I never thought it could be like that,” she admits. She rests her hand here his heart beats fretfully in his chest. “Thank you.”

Their marriage is consummated. He’s sworn to be a true and good husband to his queen, to his Mary. Now comes all the rest, and the idea of having so much time hereafter…he is anxious, but he looks forward to it.

* * *

There is remarkably little for him to officially do as a king’s consort. Mary asks him what he excels at, and after some deliberation she gives him the office of the Lord High Treasurer. Harry, being the Marquess of Dorset for six years and managing his family’s fortunes for nearly ten during his father’s decline, has a proficient understanding of how to balance a budget. And to his horror, it seems his predecessors did not.

Whatever money they did have under Henry VII is long gone. And it seems most of it gone to absolute frippery—what need do they have of 2,000 tapestries? 6,500 handguns? The expenses of the departed king and the former Queen Anne in one year alone could amount to five years of a stable nation! Perhaps even ten! Harry reports this to Mary and the Privy Council and she too is horrified. “Are we truly insolvent then?”

The Earl of Southampton, another competent man and one involved in England’s shipyards, helps Harry tally the recovery measures. “As long as we stay out of any wars for the next generation and expand our trade, we should be solvent in perhaps five years.” Harry nods. Five years, remarkably short considering the lifespans of kings and queens. Mary still looks pale, so the Earl adds, “We can auction most of the departed king’s belongings as they were not truly personal in nature. I dare say there are many young rich lords in England and elsewhere who would fancy a royal-commissioned tapestry for themselves.”

“We are to barter our way back to prosperity then,” Mary murmurs. She sighs, then rolls her shoulders. “See it done then, my lords. We must do whatever we can to bring England back from its path of ruin.”

They all glance at the Lord Chancellor. It’s a surprise he remains on the Council, that he remains with a head! But Mary, Thomas Cromwell and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk seemed to have had a very long discussion while Harry was busy in Dorset handing over his estates to Thomas. And whatever that discussion entailed, Cromwell remains the throne’s acting man. Harry is privately glad for it, as Cromwell is a fellow reformer—something he must broach very delicately with his Catholic wife…

“Now about the dissolution of the monasteries in England,” Mary says. She raises her chin. “We’ve heard reports of former monks and nuns reduced to penury in ditches alongside villages, of the poor going without alms and comfort with their abbeys and monasteries closed. We cannot tolerate the destruction of the Mother Church for mere profit.”

A shame, as the profit is desperately needed and the monasteries shut down were obscene in their degradation of God. But Harry knows how much Mary has suffered for her faith. Perhaps…yes, there is a way to broach this. Harry says, “We cannot tolerate destruction, this is true Your Majesty. Which is why I suggest a more coordinated effort with the Archbishop—” Mary’s lips twitch into a brief smirk, as she can hardly stand Archbishop Crammer “—and men of your choosing to reevaluate the standing of England’s monasteries and what to do with displaced persons.”

“The standing, my lord?”

Harry steels himself. “There was a monastery on my Leicestershire lands once, Your Majesty. The head abbot professed that he could heal whoever was truly faithful of their sickness. When my sister Anne fell ill and did not recover, my lord father and lady mother took her there.” Harry must take a calming breath. He cannot weep before the Council. “My sister passed, and the head abbot…he implied there was a deficiency in her faith, as well as my parents’, to explain her passing.”

Some of the council members make sympathetic noises. How many of their own children and siblings have passed on? What blame do they carry for it, that simple and natural state of going to God before they have time to make their goodbyes? Mary’s sharp gaze softens. Then she turns to the Lord Chancellor and asks, “In your…investigations of the monasteries, how many of the monasteries suffered this same sort of,” and she frowns, “unjust behavior?”

“Many, Your Majesty. Admittedly, it has become aware to me that some of the auditors were overzealous in their endeavors, but I’ve compiled their reports if you wish to view them.”

“Yes, thank you.” Mary rests her hands on the table. “We will not tolerate heresy, but nor will we tolerate injustice and corruption. We must root it out, my lords, and set things to right. My parents, may God give them rest, would stand for nothing less.”

Later, in the privacy of Mary’s favorite garden, Mary asks him in plain language, “What are your views about the Reformation sweeping the continent?”

“…my sister’s death showed me the corruption priests could have. And when you read the full text of Martin Luther’s pamphlets…” He shrugs ineffectively. “And they are not necessarily your enemies.” She scoffs and he presses the issue, “I’ve heard that rulers of Protestant courts have no complaint at all to your queenship, Mary, as they’ve always seen you to be the true heir to England’s throne. Luther and Tyndale themselves decried the departed king’s actions as—well, as false. Something both Catholics and Protestants agree upon, it seems.”

Mary narrows her eyes then turns away. She stares at a rose bush until perhaps it will burst into flames beneath her gaze. Her fists clench tightly and shake. Mary demands in a voice that shakes as well, “Show me these pamphlets then, Harry. I would see for myself what these Protestants have to say.”

She reads everything Harry’s smuggled. Mary is furiously silent for a long time after and decides to go visit Hatfield alone for a week. Oh, he’s done it. He’s ruined it. Harry fears that he’s ruined everything, that she must despise him as a heretic now. He lingers through Council meetings and tennis matches with his brothers to try and steady his nerves. But in truth he is a wreck and prone to pacing endlessly in their chambers—he must move chambers soon, she must not stand the sight of him—

Mary returns with Elizabeth set up in chambers adjacent to their own and apologizes to him. “I wasn’t angry at you, I promise. But I knew if I didn’t have a place to be alone I’d turn my anger on you. I’ve seen what the departed king’s anger did to my mother, I didn’t want that, you didn’t deserve that,” and her voice is so small at the end that he kisses her hands. Of course he forgives her. Mary smiles to hear it, then sighs. “I am a Catholic, Harry. I will always be one, I suspect. But…there are some truths to what these Protestants feel, and I am mother to a nation of both. I would not have one stamped out without mercy like the Inquisition.” She looks at their joined hands. “I will pass an Act before Parliament. England shall remain a Catholic nation, the pearl of Christendom. But—but no more burnings. No more heresy trials. Let these matters lie quietly, and let us have peace.

England hasn’t known peace in years it seems. What a marvel it will be to know peace by her side. Harry kneels before her. “You are a gracious queen, Mary. Mercy becomes you.”

“And moderance becomes you.” She bids him to rise and hooks her arm with his. “Come, I have someone I want you to meet.”

Elizabeth is a charming child of three, absolutely adorable and intelligent. She curtsies with the grace of a girl twice her age and Harry bows over her tiny hand. “I am honored to meet such a gracious lady as yourself.”

She giggles. Harry wonders if she mourns losing her title as princess, as it’s been declared that Elizabeth is illegitimate. But honored, as Mary intends to raise her in her household at her knee. Her cousins my Mary Boleyn shall join her too, and the Carey siblings are already at court with the Staffords soon to join. Maybe Elizabeth hardly knows the loss at all, as her main concerns are her mother and her dolls and wanting to ride a pony. Mary seats her on her lap on a guided horse ride, gives her five new dolls to play with her cousin Cathy, and despairs about Anne Boleyn.

“I must be merciful. England will not tolerate a woman tyrant.”

“I know, Mary.”

“But I hate her! She was cruel to me, to my mother!”

“I know, Mary.”

“I have to do something with her, she cannot remain in the Tower forever—but maybe she can, can’t she? This is too complicated a matter to settle.”

“I know, Mary.”

Mary hiccups and wipes at her eyes. Her shoulders strain and Harry can feel the tension and agitation rolling off her like waves on the Dorset shorelines. “Come to bed with me, Harry. I cannot think about her right now, I can’t deal with her.”

Harry makes love to Mary, slow and careful and indulgent of her needs, until exhaustion takes her. She folds herself against his chest in her sleep, like a pearl in her shell. He wraps his arm around her form and prays to God for deliverance of her stress.

* * *

Mary finds the departed king’s old letters and diaries while searching for one of his old signet rings. Harry finds Mary seated on the floor, letters strewn about her and tears running down her cheeks. “He hated me,” she says and her voice is so calm, yet so broken, that Harry nearly cries himself. “Even before he met Anne Boleyn—he _hated_ me.”

Harry sits down next to her and she rests his head on his shoulder. Red curls escape her hood and he brushes a tendril back from her face. “Why do you say that?” She hands him a diary and he reads the cursive text. It’s dated in 1517, before either Harry or Mary were born. Henry rails at Catherine on the page, decrying her as a whore and a false queen who has only begotten him dead children. Of how unless their next pregnancy—the pregnancy that birthed Mary to the world—brought him a son, he would see Catherine thrown in a nunnery.

He didn’t, obviously, and public correspondence involving Mary always referred to her as the Princess of Wales so maybe he didn’t mean it? But then he looks at all the other papers. His wrath screams from the dug-in pen marks, his wrath and impotent rage. Of how he despised Catherine, of how he wished he’d never married Catherine, of how he wished Mary had been born dead like the rest so that he could finally marry Anne…

By God and all His angel, damn Henry Tudor to hell!

“It was never her who put me at Hatfield, it was never her who was cruel.” Mary blinks and more tears gather on her lashes. “It was my own father—I made him so angry! I was a terrible daughter!”

“No.” Harry stomps down on that line of despair before it can break his wife’s heart. He hugs her close and murmurs in her ear, “This was his own failing. If he couldn’t see the marvelous woman you were born to be, the queen that you are now—then the devil take his corpse’s eyes.” Mary looks up at him in shock and Harry kisses her cheek. “He was obsessed for a son, Mary. There’s nothing you could have done.”

“I should’ve been born a boy.”

“God has seen to it that you are the first true queen regnant of England. I wouldn’t question His will, as it’s brought you to me, and it’s marvelous in my eyes.”

Mary blushes a pale rose. He kisses her other cheek, then her forehead. Then he carries her away from the mess of hate upon the floor and to bed. They lie there, talking about poetry as if it’s a fine summer’s day and they are country gentry lounging in tall grass. Harry indulges himself in running his fingers through her hair, even when the thick locks snag around his fingers and bid him to cradle her head against his chest. “I am two fools, I know, / For loving, and for saying so / In whining poetry,” he whispers. Mary smiles against his chest and he continues, “But where’s that wiseman, that would not be I, / if she would not deny?”

“And I, which was two fools, do so grow three; / Who are a little wise, the best fools be,” she finished the poem. Then Mary presses his hand against her stomach. And Harry’s eyes widen. “The midwife said we can’t know for sure until two more months have passed, as only one month since our wedding has and who knows when we conceived this child, but…”

A child. A child for England, and for Harry and Mary.

“I’m scared,” she whispers. “What if—what if I’m like my mother? What if we never have a living child?”

“But she did, she had you. And that will be enough, God willing.”

They properly undress for bed, damn the evening meal. Harry wakes up the next morning with Mary’s arms wrapped around him as if he is the pearl in her shell, as if he is the babe in her womb. A child! He grins into his pillow. Their child!

They dare not announce anything until after Mary’s coronation and after she begins showing, but Harry prepares anyway. He oversees the audit of monasteries so that Mary need not worry. He helps her up and down from her horse so that she never is misbalanced. He stands at her side as she swears in her ladies—Frances and Eleanor Brandon; Susan Clarencieux; Anne Bassett; Eleanor Browne, and other loyal ladies—so that she has his confidence in her choosing. He writes to his mother and sisters about their pregnancies, out of strictly curiosity of course, and learns what pains they bore so that Mary doesn’t go in blind to their pregnancy.

He goes with her to the Tower of London to confront Anne Boleyn so that she is not alone.

Later, when they return and Mary and Anne have had their final confrontation, he asks how she feels. Mary stutters out a laugh. “I think relieved might be a word for it. And maybe disappointment.”

“Disappointment?”

“I don’t know what I expected. For years I built up this grand scene in my mind of confronting the whore who ruined my life, of finally being victorious.” Mary sits on the bed and frowns at her hands. “She wept and kissed my skirts as I always wanted her to, and called herself the most shameful words. But I didn’t enjoy any of it.”

Harry helps her remove her regal outerwear; she is far from an invalid but he likes the act of stripping away the finery layer by layer to reveal that a true queen remains even in her shift. “I said before that mercy becomes you, Mary. I doubt it would be in your nature to take pleasure from her suffering.”

“I’m happy she said those things and I’m happy she’s going away to Kimbolton to rot there until Bess is old enough to visit her. But I’m not happy to see her so miserable when—when all I can imagine is myself in her place, and my mother, and even little Bess.” Mary shivers and not just from the cool air of their chambers. “I never want anyone to be like that to me again. It reminds me of the departed king.” Mary never refers to the old king as her father and Harry cannot blame her. “I want to be a good queen, Harry. A good queen…”

She will be. Harry can see it: her coronation of gold and gossamer and a thousand more roses red and white. A purple gown rising over the swell of her stomach, and next year a child to come—a son or daughter, Harry doesn’t care, for it shall be their child. Theirs, entirely untouched by its grandfather’s madness.

He runs a finger down her arm. “You’re cold. I’ll call the servants for a bath.”

A bath is drawn, with fragrant rosewater steaming into the air. Harry makes to leave but Mary tells him, “Help me.” And who is he to refuse his queen?

She slides into the bath, and Harry lathers a gentle lemon soap into her hair. He massages her scalp, until she is boneless in the bath and his arms up to his elbows are covered in foam. He pours water over her head until it’s gone. Then her hand darts out and fists into his shirt. “I’m afraid I need more assistance, Henry.”

He grins, and discards of his cumbersome clothes. It’s time for laundry anyway. He gets a new bar of castile soap, this time scented with flowers. Flowers for the May Queen; roses for the Tudor Queen. He starts at her shoulders, and rubs his thumbs along her neck and collarbones while her eyelids lower and her arms rest on the tub’s rim. Lower still, to properly ensure that her breasts are entirely and unequivocally clean. Mary squirms as he pinches and rolls her nipples, before cupping each breast and squeezing. Soon they’ll be plump with milk for their child, and the thought is embarrassingly erotic to him. The Lady of the Lake was said to have given birth to heroes, did that not make her a mother goddess as well? He leans in to press a kiss to her nipples and she sighs his name.

He rests back on his knees and is glad for removing his clothes as now his chest is wet. He massages her waist, her back, her stomach with the soap until he cannot see her for all of the bubbles. Then he rests his hands on her hips and lets the soap float back to the surface of the bath. Her inner parts are too delicate for castile soap, but Mary commanded that he bathe her and he is hers to command.

He cups her sex in his palm and presses the ridge of his palm against her sensitive pearl. Mary rests her head back against the bathtub rim and whimpers, “We must be careful about the baby.”

“We will be,” he soothes her. He rubs his hand in a steady circle against her, and hisses when she grinds her hips against him. Harry dares to slip one finger inside her, crooking forward in search of that one spot he found earlier that brought her to make such marvelous sounds—she grips his wrist and keens _yes,_ and he smiles. He’s found it then. Harry kisses her and her lips part against his as if to steal his breath from his lungs. Another finger, then a third. She gropes at him, still kissing him, until he moves to a better position so that she may wrap her hand around his erection and squeeze ever so gently.

God knew His work when He gave people hands, Harry decides. He thrusts into Mary’s fist and he curls his fingers inside her, and the water rocks with their bodies. Did not the Song of Songs tell of the bounties that marriage brought between man and wife and God all around them? He cannot remember the words to it now, but he can remember the feeling, he can feel that song through Mary and through his devotion, his care, his—love? Mary hisses that she’s close and Harry open-mouth kisses her neck. He dares, he dares to suck on her neck and graze his teeth where her pulse flutters beneath his lips and she cries out.

Yes, his love. His wife, the mother of their child. Harry works his hand until she spasms and writhes helplessly, just as he’s helpless to the touch of her hand. She rubs her thumb in a circle on the crown and it’s too much, the feeling and the sound of her pleasure. He spills his seed over her fingers and nearly concusses himself on the bathtub. Mary runs her clean hand through his hair and Harry whispers, “I love you.”

“You do?’ Her voice is so soft, so breathless, so hopeful.

He runs his hand and kisses her palm. “I do. I love you, Mary.”

“I love you too, Harry.” And she smiles as bright as the fire in the hearth, as the sun on their wedding day.

* * *

Mary passes a few more Acts and treaties before the mourning is finished and she may take an anointed crown. She renews the treaty with Scotland and her cousin King James on better terms, as well as with Portugal and Denmark. Smaller nations with a large net of influence, and anything to switch the Scots from being agent of France to being actual allies is anything good. She is still wary of the Schmalkaldic League, as they are aggressively Protestant beyond the bounds of her tolerance, but Harry holds her hand tightly when she signs a non-aggression and trade treaty with the League. Best they send over Anna of Cleves, who Mary instantly comes to adore, to help build a bridge between the nations of Christ. Harry’s heard of the works of Heinrich Bullinger in Sweden and his reforms and cajoles Mary to read one of his works. She admits he’s far more palatable than Luther and that madman John Calvin and lets him keep the book in his personal library. “Only because you’re so—so _convincing,”_ she grouses to him and he laughs.

She, in the spirit of her departed mother, also sets about reforming the education in England. As monasteries and abbeys are no longer able to educate the lay children as they once were—and for good reason as even Mary spits about the monasteries used as personal brothels ensnaring those lay children!—Mary sets about making Crown Schools for those who cannot afford a private education. “We would see all Englishmen able to read and write, as this shall prepare them for greater labor and commerce for the sake of our great nation.”

“Of course, Majesty…but even the girls?”

“Yes, even the girls until the mandatory age of twelve, and sixteen if their parents may spare them four more years in the classroom.” Mary smiles her queenly smile. “Our sainted mother Queen Catherine gave us the greatest education she could spare, and we know of how fortunate our lot is in life. We would share in that fortune to all Englishmen and Englishwomen.”

The common people adore Mary, as do many of the Northern lords and the lords around Dorset and Leicestershire. Thomas does well in being the new Marquess and Harry commends him. Thomas puffs up and says, “For the good of our Good Queen Mary and Bonny King Harry I’ll do more than just being well.”

And as the coronation nears with the treasury slowly regaining its footing and spring knocking upon winter’s door and Mary’s stomach swelling, Harry prays in both English and Latin to beseech God to bless them all.

Mary is crowned on May Day, as she chooses to meld the holiday with her coronation. Good Queen Mary, Queen May of the May come after a long winter of darkness and death—the imagery cannot write itself quick enough. She rides in a carriage of white beneath the sun and all the garlands of a thousand flowers, and the people cheer for her. Harry rides in the carriage behind her with little Elizabeth and the Brandons and admires how Mary’s hair catches all the light. She’s let it down today, to cascade down her back with the overgown of cloth-of-gold and undergrown of rich purple. A crown of roses sits atop her head and petals red and white collect in the air behind her.

The Archbishop anoints her with fragrant holy oils and sets St. Edward’s Crown in the midst of the roses. Harry is the first to kneel, the first to rise, the first to proclaim, “God Save Queen Mary!”

And in the middle of their celebration, with the cheering lords and ladies of England and countries beyond their borders, Mary pulls him into a kiss. She tastes of sunshine, of joy, of glory, of roses—Mary tastes of Mary, his Mary, his wife, his love. Harry feels the warmth of their victory soar in his heart like the clouds far above in heaven.

The next time he feels such warmth is when Mary, after a full day of screaming and cursing, brings their son into the world. Henry, Duke of Cornwall. Future Henry IX of England. Bonny Prince Hal. Little Harry. Harry wipes at his eyes where tears fall unabashed and he says, “He’s so small.”

“God willing, he’ll be great as his father and forefathers one day,” Mary says for all the well-wishers. When they are alone, with Hal resting his pillowy red cheek on her breast and his little fist clenched tight around Harry’s finger, Mary says, “I named him for you. History will call him ninth of his name, but he is yours.”

“He is both of ours,” and Harry kisses her. “And I shall love you both until my dying breath.”

* * *

They have five children out of seven pregnancies: their little Hal who isn’t little for long; their Cathy who is as sweet and sharp as a spring rose; their Tom who toddles after both Thomas and Cromwell demanding a story from the bigger Thomases; their Jane who learns to play the viola beautifully enough to bring grown men to weep; and their Bridget who is pure Tudor (and Woodville) determination.

They grow up with their beloved aunt Elizabeth, first Countess of Pembroke and then once again Marquess after she marries Robert Dudley. Bess and Robin were already friends when Mary betrothed them, and from what Harry knows they love each other as much as Harry and Mary do. Harry doesn’t pry hard into the relationship Mary and Bess have as it is not truly his place, but he knows that Bess doesn’t resent Mary for the actions she took in her infancy; he knows that Mary thanks God every day for her sister’s kind heart.

And together with his Queen at his side, they steer England away from that path of ruin Mary declared so long ago. Mary’s cousin King James dies with only another Mary, dear little May, to follow him. Mary engineers the marriage between Hal and May. Another Henry and Mary, this time for a personal union between England and Scotland that Harry prays shall last until Christ returns. It helps that Mary has May come to London when she is ten, and then Hal and May go first to Wales at fifteen then Holyrood at eighteen. They will be king and queen of both, and if their marriage is far more…passionate and stormy than Harry’s, Hal and May always reconcile afterward.

England and Denmark grow closer with the North Sea trade, and eventually their Crown prince asks for Cathy’s hand. Mary is worried that Cathy, a Tolerant Catholic but still Catholic, will wilt in the decidedly Lutheran court of Copenhagen. Harry is sure that in their marriage contract Cathy is given the right to worship as she sees fit, and Frederick is the soul of Renaissance gallantry in his letters to Cathy and then to his official in-person courting. Slowly Mary warms to him and gives her official and personal blessings. Cathy assures both Harry and Mary that she will be happy, and when she goes to become Queen Catherine of Denmark and Norway, they let her go knowing she will have a bright future.

Their Tom marries Anna of Cleves, niece to Harry and Mary’s friend Anna who married an Englishman to get out from beneath the thumb of her odious brother. Tom also sees himself as a parfait knight to an abused lady, and Anna is quick to fulfill that role. As Tom wants nothing more than to be Hal’s right-hand man for England, Anna befriends the princesses and May to be their right-hand woman. Very clever, the two are, clever and calculating. But they are happy as co-conspirators and Harry approves as long as they remain content in being behind the throne rather than on it.

Jane was content to be no one in particular other than a English princess, so when Mary hosts the Portuguese court at Whitehall for a summer it’s a surprise when she and their King Sebastian fall in love. Sebastian is young and impetuous, eager to prove himself after a long regency in his infancy and childhood. But Jane is cool and calm like the shade-bearing trees so slender and graceful in the royal gardens. He pursues her like a hunter but she evades him like a huntress, and it’s only after he nearly loses his life in battle and gains maturity from it that she accepts his suit. Both of Harry and Mary’s daughters become beloved queens, and it brings Mary to tears as her mother is avenged threefold.

Toddling behind after all of them is sweet Bridget, who reminds Harry so much of both Mary and his long-departed sister Anne that sometimes he can hardly breathe. From what the older lords say she is also the vision of Mary Tudor, Queen of France and then Duchess of Suffolk. And it’s true that wherever she runs with her red-blonde hair trailing down her back free of its hood, mischief and adventure is soon to follow. It’s anyone’s guess why that trail leads to Ireland but in the end it works out.

Silken Thomas FitzGerald had a son Gerald who thankfully matched his grandfather’s temperament and wisdom rather than his father’s. And he’s tall with an Irish brogue and sword fighting skills that put half of England’s soldiers to shame. He comes to court and Harry must drag Bridget away from immediately running off with the man. When Grainne O’Malley kidnaps Bridget after Bridget’s ship sank off the coast of the Pale—or, as Mary deduces, rescued Mary and then their foolhardy daughter decided to stay and convince Grainne to raid the Spanish rather than the English—the new Earl of Kildare is the one to retrieve both Bridget and Grainne’s surrender. Mary pardons the Irish pirate out of gratitude for saving Bridget, commands her to put her skills to use elsewhere lest she craves a Tyburn jig, and throws her hands up when Gerald pledges his sword for Bridget. The marriage takes place when Bridget is eighteen, as if Harry’s stipulation, and their English daughter becomes the highest Irish lady in that often-rebellious isle. Some foolish lords titter how she gave up a probably queenship for a tiny island, but relations between England and Ireland are far warmer once their Countess of Kildare gives birth to her first son.

In all, Harry and Mary live to rock their seventeen grandchildren and four nieces and nephews. It is a joy they never expected God to grant them and they do not squander it. As the years pass and their red hair turns grey and Mary must lean on his arm for more and more support, they nurture that joy. They bring England into prosperity, into fame, into happiness. Every now and then Harry cheekily asks if his queen needs help with her bathing and she just laughs like a maid of twenty.

Mary decides to abdicate to Hal and May once Hal turns thirty and May’s given birth to her third child. Harry’s brothers are long since gone due to sickness and skirmish, and it’s odd to return to being Marquess of Dorset again after years of being king consort. Harry sweeps Mary into his arms and carries her over the threshold of the home they shall retire in, the home they shall make together with the years they’ve been blessed to keep.

“I am ever at your service, my queen.”

“And I am ever at your call, my lord.”

He kisses her cheek. “I love you.”

She smiles with all the laugh lines around her blue-green eyes. “And I love you.”

* * *

When they are buried, they are buried together at Westminster Abbey as Queen Mary I and King Henry. Their line stretches as far as monarchies last, and visitors to their marble tome find a wreath of carved roses around Mary’s effigy, and Harry’s coat of arms clutched in her hands. It is tradition on every May Day to leave roses red and white there, and to let the petals scatter around the grave.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay I finally came through with a fluffy romance piece! A rather smutty one, I admit, but the major players of the Tudor era were rather hot-blooded. And I wanted to hammer in how enthusiastic consent really ought to be the standard of all relations. Mary, as queen regnant and the lady to Harry’s knight allusion, sets the pace and the progress of their relations and Harry think it’s really hot.
> 
> Amadís de Gaula is a famous Reinaissance era chivalric romance published in the early 1500s in Spain and became known throughout Europe soon after. It made sense to me that both Mary and Harry would know this book since a) they’re well read and b) as I said in the story there’s some parallels between Amadís and Oriana with Harry and Mary. Thought it was cute.
> 
> The poem Harry and Mary recite is “The Triple Fool” by John Donne. He was an Elizabethan era poet, not a Marian era, but I liked the poem enough to bump his age up by half a century. It’s also because I could actually read it, I’m not good at reading early modern English or Scots and a lot of poetry written in English during the early 1500s to me is barely legible lol
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked it!


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